Chapter 2
The officers slammed Ryan against the desk before he reached Lucy.
She screamed and buried her face against Officer Carter.
Ryan fought them.
Not like a frightened father.
Like a trapped animal.
“You don’t understand!” he shouted. “Those kids lie! Their mother taught them to lie!”
I stared at him.
Mom had never taught us anything about Ryan.
Not really.
For six months, she had told us to call him Uncle Ryan.
Then one morning, he started correcting us.
“Dad,” he would say.
At first, he laughed when I refused.
Later, he stopped laughing.
Sergeant Collins twisted Ryan’s arms behind his back.
“You are being detained while we investigate the welfare of these children.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I just did.”
Ryan looked directly at me.
His voice suddenly became calm.
Too calm.
“Ethan, tell them what happened to your real father.”
My stomach tightened.
Officer Carter looked down at me.
I said nothing.
Ryan smiled.
“Tell them.”
“Stop talking to the child,” Collins ordered.
Ryan ignored him.
“Tell them Daniel abandoned you.”
“He didn’t.”
“Tell them your mother lied about him.”
“He didn’t abandon us!”
My shout echoed across the station.
Lucy started crying again.
Ryan’s smile grew.
That was what he wanted.
He wanted me angry.
Confused.
Scared.
Officer Carter crouched beside me.
“You don’t have to answer him.”
I pulled Daniel’s photograph against my chest.
Dad was wearing a blue Vanderbilt sweatshirt in the picture.
Lucy was a baby.
I was sitting on his shoulders.
Mom stood beside him, laughing.
The picture had been taken at Centennial Park.
Three weeks later, Dad disappeared.
Mom told me he had died.
She never explained how.
Ryan said Dad had run away.
Neither story made sense.
“Where’s Mommy?” Lucy whispered.
Officer Carter stood.
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Within minutes, the station changed.
Phones rang.
Officers moved quickly.
Names were written down.
Addresses were checked.
Sergeant Collins asked me where we lived.
I gave him the address.
Ryan shouted from the other side of the room.
“No!”
Everyone turned.
He realized his mistake.
Collins smiled without humor.
“That house important to you?”
Ryan looked away.
I pointed at him.
“That’s where Mommy is.”
“How did you get away?”
I swallowed.
Lucy answered.
“The laundry window.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
Officer Carter crouched beside us again.
“Start from the beginning.”
I looked at Lucy.
She was shaking.
So I told them.
That morning, Mom had made pancakes.
Ryan came downstairs angry because she had used her phone.
He grabbed it.
Mom tried to get it back.
He pushed her against the refrigerator.
I ran toward him.
He grabbed my shirt and threw me onto the couch.
Then Mom hit him with a coffee mug.
Ryan stared at the broken pieces on the floor.
His face changed.
He dragged Mom upstairs.
Lucy and I followed.
He shoved Mom into her bedroom and locked the door.
Then he told us we were going on a trip.
“What trip?” Officer Carter asked.
“He said Florida.”
Ryan laughed from across the room.
“A family vacation is a crime now?”
Collins shoved him into a chair.
“Be quiet.”
I continued.
Ryan told us to pack one backpack each.
Then he went into the basement.
Usually, the basement door stayed locked.
But today he forgot.
Lucy followed him.
“I wanted my bunny,” she whispered.
Officer Carter frowned.
“Your bunny was downstairs?”
Lucy nodded.
“Ryan took Mr. Pickles because I was bad.”
I almost laughed.
Even now, hearing the ridiculous name of Lucy’s stuffed rabbit made something inside me hurt.
Dad had bought Mr. Pickles before he disappeared.
Ryan hated that bunny.
He hated everything connected to Dad.
Lucy continued.
“I saw the door.”
“What door?”
“The little one behind the shelves.”
Ryan suddenly stood.
Two officers shoved him back down.
Lucy pointed at the silver key.
“That key opened it.”
Officer Carter’s face changed.
“What did you see inside?”
Lucy stared at the floor.
“Pictures.”
“What kind?”
“Kids.”
Ryan began shouting.
“She’s five! She doesn’t know what she saw!”
Lucy flinched.
I stepped between her and him.
“She saw passports too.”
Ryan stopped.
That silence was worse than shouting.
Officer Carter asked, “How do you know?”
“Because she showed me.”
I told them how Lucy came running upstairs.
How she whispered that there were pictures of children in the secret room.
How I followed her downstairs.
The hidden door was still open.
Inside were shelves.
Folders.
Photographs.
Birth certificates.
Passports.
Newspaper clippings.
One wall had a map covered in colored pins.
I remembered two names because Lucy had read them aloud.
Charlotte Bennett.
Noah Bennett.
Those were the passports Collins found.
Officer Carter looked at Collins.
He was already calling someone.
Then I remembered something else.
“There was a picture of me.”
Ryan stared at me.
Nobody spoke.
Officer Carter leaned closer.
“What kind of picture?”
“Me at school.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Before Ryan lived with us.”
My voice became quieter.
“There were pictures of Lucy too.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“From before she was born.”
Officer Carter froze.
“That isn’t possible.”
“I know.”
But I had seen it.
A photograph of Mom leaving a hospital.
Dad beside her.
Mom was pregnant.
Ryan stood across the street.
Watching them.
Collins ended his call.
“We have units going to the house. Child crimes and missing persons are coming here.”
Ryan laughed bitterly.
“You people are making a huge mistake.”
Collins stepped close to him.
“Then explain the passports.”
No answer.
“Explain the hidden room.”
No answer.
“Explain why you imprisoned the children’s mother.”
Ryan looked at me.
Then he said something that made my blood turn cold.
“Ask Ethan’s mother who Daniel really was.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Ryan smiled.
“You think your father was some innocent family man?”
“Stop.”
“He started this.”
“Stop!”
Officer Carter grabbed my shoulders.
Ryan kept going.
“He stole something from people who don’t forgive theft.”
Collins ordered the officers to take him to an interview room.
Ryan shouted over his shoulder.
“Your mother knows! Ask her what happened the night Daniel disappeared!”
The door slammed behind him.
I couldn’t breathe.
Lucy tugged my sleeve.
“Ethan?”
I turned.
Her eyes were huge.
“Is Daddy alive?”
I had no answer.
Officer Carter’s radio crackled.
A voice came through.
“Unit Twelve at the Miller residence. Front door forced. We’re entering.”
Everyone stopped moving.
Static.
Then another voice.
“Upstairs bedroom located.”
My heart pounded.
“Female victim inside.”
Officer Carter grabbed her radio.
“Condition?”
A pause.
Too long.
Then:
“Alive.”
Lucy sobbed.
I almost fell.
But the officer wasn’t finished.
“She’s injured. Conscious. Asking for her children.”
I grabbed Lucy.
For the first time that day, I thought maybe everything would be okay.
Then the radio crackled again.
“Sergeant, you need to hear this.”
Collins lifted his radio.
“Go ahead.”
“We found the basement.”
Ryan began pounding on the interview room door.
“You stay out of there!”
Collins stared toward the sound.
The officer at the house continued.
“There’s a concealed room behind storage shelving.”
Officer Carter squeezed my hand.
“What’s inside?”
Static filled the station.
Then:
“Photos. Documents. Multiple child identities.”
Collins went pale.
“And something else.”
“What?”
“A video monitor.”
My mouth went dry.
The voice continued.
“It’s showing a live camera feed.”
Collins asked, “From where?”
The officer hesitated.
“We don’t know yet.”
Then I heard another officer shouting in the background.
A second later, the radio erupted.
“We have movement on camera!”
“What kind of movement?”
“A child.”
Lucy tightened her arms around me.
May you like
The officer’s next words changed everything.
“There’s a little boy locked in a room somewhere.”
